California Exotic Novelties: Something For Every Adult

Dif­fer­ent strokes for dif­fer­ent folks. This state­ment lies at the core of our work here, since we try to cov­er a wide va­ri­ety of in­ter­ests and top­ics. It’s nev­er bor­ing- whether we’re check­ing out a mu­sic fes­ti­val or fig­ur­ing out how to use a lock­pick. To­day’s prod­ucts are al­so the very op­po­site of bor­ing- in fact, they tend­ed to pro­duce a bit of blush­ing, raised eye­brows, and even gig­gles amongst staff. We drew straws, and let ev­ery­one grab some­thing, and re­port back anony­mous­ly.

The world has changed. And, at least in terms of sheer nov­el­ty, there can be lit­tle doubt that it has changed for the bet­ter. Cal­i­for­nia Ex­ot­ic Nov­el­ties sent us a grab bag of sorts, show­ing off the breadth of their line­up- a wide range of sex toys and ‘sex­u­al well­ness’ prod­ucts for men and wom­en. We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly checked out a cou­ple ofthe best vi­bra­tors on the mar­ket, and have a re­view of an­oth­er com­ing up soon. But most all of the lat­est adult toys are the kind that don’t need bat­ter­ies.

We’ll start with one that did- the Nip­plettes (no, we’re not jok­ing). The pack­ag­ing re­flects a bit of the rush to get prod­ucts to mar­ket- the front la­bels them “rub­ber-cot­ed”- but re­ports came back pos­i­tive­ly. These are ap­par­ent­ly a lot of fun, at least for those who can take their ex­ploits light­ly on oc­ca­sion, since it is a bit hard to avoid smil­ing at over-sized ad­justable pur­ple nip­ple clamps. There is a but­ton on the back of the unit that turns on a vi­bra­tion ef­fect, which isn’t ad­justable but does ap­par­ent­ly feel pret­ty in­tense. They might not look sexy, but they are wa­ter­proof! $25.

Con­tin­u­ing in­to the “adorn­ment” cat­e­go­ry, we checked out a few oth­er prod­ucts aimed at wom­en, like the ‘Play­ful in Pearls’ Satin Eye Mask and Satin & Pearl Pasties. They both are com­fort­able, and the pasties even come with ad­he­sive tape in­clud­ed. Of course, the pearls are fake- but the over­all ef­fect is pret­ty hot. Same for the Pearl Col­lar and Cuff, per­haps the best-look­ing piece of gear we tried, even if it’s just for looks (the strand of pearls is a bit too del­i­cate to ac­tu­al­ly pull on with any force). As with most of these sorts of things, they are one size fits most, but we didn’t hear about any prob­lems. The “Bound by Di­a­monds” Rib­bon Eye Mask was the on­ly one with any re­al com­plaints- de­spite be­ing satin lined, the tie was a bit awk­ward and un­com­fort­able, prone to com­ing loose. $14-$17.

For the more ad­ven­tur­ous, there’s def­i­nite­ly a few things to push your bound­aries. The ‘Tantric Bind­ing Love’ line of­fers a col­lar and cuffs set that is a bit un­usu­al, stretch­ing along the spine in the rear, and with a few red bows to off­set the oth­er­wise fair­ly dark look. The match­ing corset and wrist cuffs don’t work well in com­bi­na­tion (two sets of cuffs feels a bit ex­ces­sive) but prob­a­bly would work bet­ter for most peo­ple, and are flex­i­ble if a bit scratchy. $29 each. And keep­ing with theme of bind­ing and light bondage, the Di­a­mond Whip and Pad­dle are sold sep­a­rate­ly, aimed more at dom­i­na­trix sorts, since the di­a­mond ac­cents look a bit odd in a guy’s hands. The best-built piece of gear was the 2-Piece Di­a­mond Thigh Re­straints, which felt sur­pris­ing­ly well-made, with sol­id vel­co straps and de­cent hard­ware clasps. Those look­ing for a more “all-in-one” so­lu­tion can pick up the Dr. Lau­ra Berman In­ti­mate Ba­sics Mis­tress Kit, which comes with a feath­er tick­ler, eye mask, and faux fur-lined hand­cuffs with keys. Cute in­stead of in­tim­i­dat­ing, these are the play­ful ver­sions, and def­i­nite­ly our sug­ges­tion for those new to this sort of thing. $31.

Fi­nal­ly, for those look­ing for beads and balls and oth­er sim­i­lar ob­jects, rest as­sured that Cal­i­for­nia Ex­ot­ic Nov­el­ties has your, um, back. Glass, plas­tic, weight­ed, in shades of pink and a va­ri­ety of styles and prices, from $15 to $31 or so. Let’s just say- you should be able to get quite a work out. And re­mem­ber: safe­ty first!